


Behind Closed Doors

by Mireille



Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Community: joss_las, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-05-06
Updated: 2008-05-06
Packaged: 2019-03-21 10:26:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13738893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mireille/pseuds/Mireille
Summary: Xander had a lot of bad ideas these days, including the one where he and Spike had been playing Secret Agent Man for the last two years.





	Behind Closed Doors

"Willow knows something's up," Xander said, closing the motel-room door behind him. It might have been paranoid of him, but he couldn't resist pulling back the drapes a half-inch or so, just to make sure no one had followed him.   
  
Okay, and for the way Spike swore, drawing his knees up to keep his feet out of the sunlight, even though Xander had been careful to check that the light would fall on the floor in front of the bed and not across the foot of the bed itself. A guy had to have  _some_  kind of entertainment, and annoying Spike was as good as it got, these days.   
  
"Yeah?" Spike didn't sound interested; Xander didn't let that stop him. If he waited for Spike to sound interested, he'd be waiting a long time. "Before you decide to turn tail and run, remember you still owe me for today."   
  
It was times like these when Xander wondered if all those hours he spent padding his expense reports were worth it. He sighed, sitting down on the edge of the bed, turning to look at Spike. "I don't pay if you don't have anything for me."   
  
For a minute, he thought Spike was going to tell him to go fuck himself. Instead, Spike reached under the pillow, handed him a manila envelope, and said, "Knock yourself out."   
  
Spike wasn't well-connected enough for it to ever be much. Xander wasn't sure what kind of deal Spike had made back in Los Angeles--he was only guessing that there  _was_  a deal, but something had to explain how Spike had been the only one of Angel's people to get out of there in one piece--but whatever it was, it definitely didn't put him high up in the ranks of the demons that had been terrorizing California for the past few years. Spike's jaunts to random parts of North America every month or so--he and Xander never met up in the same place twice--couldn't have helped that, either. So whatever Spike had for Xander, it was never much.   
  
But it was always something. And much to Xander's surprise, sometimes in the hands of Giles or Willow or someone else at the Council, it turned out to be something important. That was why he kept meeting up with Spike, even though the Slayers had all been given orders to stake him on sight.   
  
Xander had tried, once or twice, to get Willow to consider the possibility that Spike hadn't completely gone over to the other side. It hadn't worked, and he'd decided that bringing it up was going to make her suspicious.   
  
Right now, she just knew Xander was hiding something, because in general, he sucked at being covert-ops guy; Xander was guessing she thought he had a girlfriend somewhere. She'd probably have figured it out a year ago if it hadn't been so freaking  _ridiculous_. Spike, an informant for the demon hordes that had overrun southern California thanks to Angel's clusterfuck of a last stand? Okay, that part might not be so stupid. But  _Xander_ , the one guy who actually trusted him? Trusting Spike wasn't exactly something Xander was known for.   
  
But what he thought of Spike as a human-shaped being hadn't mattered. What mattered was that Spike hadn't been lying, and Spike had been feeding them good information--true information, at least, even if it was only useful about a third of the time--so Xander didn't see any reason to tell the Council where he was getting the names and dates and places he'd been passing on. He'd get in trouble, they'd lose the information, Spike would be dust--and even if Spike had deserved it in the past, he was doing them a favor now.   
  
He just reached into his jacket and took out an envelope, thick with the cash he'd been carefully lying on expense reports to get--because asking for money to pay an informant meant someone was going to want to know who his informant was, and Xander thought that would be a bad idea.   
  
Xander had a lot of bad ideas these days, including the one where he and Spike had been playing Secret Agent Man for the last two years, but he didn't want to  _intentionally_  add to the list. Not when Spike's information had done them some good.   
  
And not when, now that their transaction was finished, Spike slid over on the bed, making room for Xander to stretch out, and they watched TV--half of California gone literally to hell, and TV Land was still showing reruns of  _The Andy Griffith Show_ ; cockroaches and 60s TV, the two things that would never die--and made fun of the commercials, ads for purse-sized holy water sprays slipped right in there along the erectile dysfunction drugs and fast-food burgers.   
  
Weird what people would suddenly-- _finally_ \--start thinking of as normal, he thought, as the vampire next to him fell asleep. 

**Author's Note:**

> [me on tumblr](https://mireille719.tumblr.com)


End file.
